The Senate Ethics Committee publicly admonished Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) “for an aspect of his role in the scandal that led to the resignation last year of Sen. John Ensign (R-NV),” the Oklahoman reports.
Coburn did not violate the law or Senate rules but the committee said a meeting with Ensign’s former top aide was “improper conduct” that did not meet the “higher standards expected of a U.S. senator.”
Former Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) resigned a year ago after admitting to having sent lewd photos to female followers on Twitter.
But BuzzFeed notes “for one corner of the Internet, Weinergate is very much not over. A group of liberal bloggers believe that Anthony Weiner was blackmailed by Andrew Breitbart into a false confession, and are carrying out a lonely Twitter crusade to spread their theory — in spite of the fact that Weiner himself has never claimed this to be the case.”
Billionaire investor Joe Ricketts, who dropped plans for a $10 million advertising blitz linking President Obama with the fiery race-based rhetoric of the Rev. Jeremia Wright, “is involved in another effort slated for this summer, a documentary film based on a widely criticized book, The Roots of Obama’s Rage by Dinesh D’Souza, which asserts that Mr. Obama is carrying out the ‘anticolonial’ agenda of his Kenyan father,” the New York Times reports.
“Mr. Ricketts’s aides said he was one of roughly two dozen investors, providing only 5 percent of the film’s budget. But his involvement shows how the more strident attacks against Mr. Obama, which Mr. Romney’s aides view as counterproductive, continue to find backing even as the Republican Party and the Romney campaign seek to keep the focus on the economy.”
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Washington Post: “Something exceedingly strange is happening at the John Edwards trial: all four alternate jurors dressed in red shirts Friday. They each wore bright yellow the day before. Coincidence? Few here think so.”
“The demeanor of the alternate jurors and their behavior has become the talk of the courthouse. The alternates enter the courtroom each day giggling among themselves. One of the alternates, an attractive young woman, has been spotted smiling at Edwards and flipping her hair in what seems to some to be a flirtatious manner. On Friday, she wore a revealing red top with a single strap and an exposed right shoulder.”
ABC News: “The juror clearly instigated the exchanges. She smiles at him. He smiles politely back at her. She giggles. He blushes.”
The jurors are in their 6th day of deliberations and will resume next week.
A new Rasmussen survey in Indiana shows Joe Donnelly (D) and Richard Mourdock (R) locked in a dead heat in their U.S. Senate race, 42% to 42%.
Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI) said that he “may not have turned in enough valid signatures to qualify for the Aug. 7 Republican primary in his suburban Detroit district,” the Detroit News reports.
Said McCotter: “Fully respecting the accuracy and integrity of the Secretary of State’s Office, we will thoroughly review our petition signatures for their sufficiency or insufficiency. Out of respect for Memorial Day, an announcement of our findings will be made public on Tuesday.”
“If his signatures are ruled insufficient, McCotter would still have options. He could run as a write-in Republican candidate or as an independent.”
A new Gallup poll finds Americans are more than twice as likely to identify themselves as conservative rather than liberal on economic issues, 46% to 20%.
The gap is narrower on social issues, but conservatives still outnumber liberals, 38% to 28%.
A new Wisconsin poll commissioned by the Democratic Governors Association finds Gov. Scott Walker (R) with a narrow lead over challenger Tom Barrett (D) in the recall election, 49% to 46%.
After porn stars Brooklyn Lee and Tasha Reign were shooed away from Bill Clinton by a Secret Service agent, the former president called them back over for a photo, ABC News reports.
However, the two were uncertain, but hopeful, that Clinton knew who they were.
Said Lee: “I kind of feel like he knows. We hope he likes us and we hope he likes to watch our movies.”
Reign concurred: “I have a feeling that everyone watches adult entertainment.”
BuzzFeed compiles excerpts from Barack Obama: The Story by David Maraniss that deal with the “elaborate drug culture” surrounding Barack Obama when he attended Punahou School in Honolulu and Occidental College in Los Angeles.
The bottom line: “He inhaled. A lot.”
Donald Trump told Lloyd Grove that President Obama was born in Kenya, not the United States.
Said Trump: “That’s the way life works… He didn’t know he was running for president, so he told the truth. The literary agent wrote down what he said… He said he was born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia… Now they’re saying it was a mistake. Just like his Kenyan grandmother said he was born in Kenya, and she pointed down the road to the hospital, and after people started screaming at her she said, ‘Oh, I mean Hawaii.’ Give me a break.”
House Republican leaders “unveiled a legislative calendar for the summer, revealing plans to hammer President Obama and Democrats on the economy, energy, taxes and other divisive issues in the months leading up to November’s elections,” The Hill reports.
The schedule includes a July vote to extend the Bush-era tax rates for all Americans.
President Obama, not Mitt Romney, “is the one with the muddled message — and the one who often comes across as baldly political,” Politico reports.
“Obama, not Romney, is the one facing blowback from his own party on the central issue of the campaign so far – Romney’s history with Bain Capital. And most remarkably, Obama, not Romney, is the one falling behind in fundraising.”
However, First Read points out there is “one big exception to this: Donald Trump. Yesterday, we found out that Romney will attend a fundraiser in Las Vegas on Tuesday with Trump, and the campaign is also pushing a “Dine with Donald Trump and Mitt Romney” competition. This now makes Trump an unmistakable surrogate for the Romney campaign, especially considering his other assistance to Romney (his endorsement, attendance at other fundraisers). And as we’ve seen in the past, candidates are often forced to own what their surrogates say.”
“Mitt Romney did what he had to do in order to become the nominee.”
— Newt Gingrich, in an interview on MSNBC.
Ron Brownstein: “The new round of national and state surveys this week generally showing President Obama clinging to a tenuous advantage over Republican Mitt Romney reinforce the conclusion that socially liberal, upscale white women may stand as the president’s indispensable line of defense in his struggle for reelection.”
“Both the national ABC/Washington Post survey released earlier this week, and the NBC/Marist Polls released Thursday in the battleground states of Ohio, Virginia and Florida show Obama retaining preponderant support among minority voters who were critical to his 2008 victory. Conversely, in almost all of the surveys, Obama faces a consistent pattern of erosion from his already meager 2008 levels of support among whites without a college education.”
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) and his Republican allies have outspent Tom Barrett (D) and supportive groups more than 3-1 on TV ad buys during the three months leading up to the June 5 recall election, The Hotline reports.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) “is planning a swing-state summer bus tour that will also roll through South Carolina, the early presidential primary battleground,” the Miami Herald reports.
“It’s officially aimed at selling books, not winning votes, but the freshman senator and possible vice presidential pick is set to make multiple stops not just in his home state of Florida but also in North Carolina and Virginia, critical presidential battlegrounds this fall. On the way, he’ll make several appearances in South Carolina, where Republicans hold their first-in-the-South presidential primary.”
An American Son will be released in June.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) “is now embarking on an all-out effort to revive his standing in Texas and prove he’s still a dominant force in the Lone Star State,” Politico reports.
“Unlike other failed White House candidates — Tim Pawlenty, for example — Perry has declined to become one of many full-time foot soldiers for Mitt Romney’s general election campaign. And unlike Sarah Palin, another superstar governor who flamed out as a national candidate, Perry still has a taste for wielding power on the state level. He has toyed publicly with the idea of running for governor again in 2014, and even with another presidential bid down the line.”
“The governor has endorsed 16 candidates for state and local office this year, including throwing his full weight behind Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, who is locked in a battle for the Republican Party’s Senate nomination next Tuesday… The decision to back Dewhurst so aggressively represents a gamble that as a three-term governor, Perry is still the political king of Texas.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
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